pregnant vs. pregnant

Without trying to be judgmental, there is being pregnant, and there is being pregnant. You know, the latter's the kind that rises people's eyebrows, puts a "I knew it was gonna end this way" kind of smirk on their faces, and throws family into turmoil and disaster. People whisper about such pregnancies behind their palms covering their chatty mouths, kind of like how my new Mexican relatives talked about "this cousin" who had dared getting married without involving the holy church - not too loud lest the neighbors would hear, but loud enough to gossip endlessly about with family members. (Good thing nobody told them that we were "such people" ourselves!)

I am pregnant. Not pregnant. I am the kind of pregnant that was deliberately planned for a while, purposefully planned for, and puts huge happy grins and smiles onto people's faces once they hear about it. It's the kind of pregnant that put my mother to tears, and made my 83 year old grandfather stumble for words in his emotions over an ultrasound image of my 2 mm amniotic sac, asking if we knew the gender of the baby already. It's the kind of pregnant that makes Geo kiss my tummy first thing in the morning, and that makes him plan a new nutrition plan for me in his head and makes him tell me I need to go to bed at 10 PM latest from now on, because I need all the rest I can get.

It's the kind of pregnant that makes people want to share it with others, and it's the kind of news that travel faster than speed of light, even though I personally have only told a few people as of yet - and already am getting phone calls back from people who heard it from other people. It's the kind of pregnant that makes people happy, because they know what we had gone through previously.

So my mother goes to call her sister, my aunt, blurting out on the phone that GUESS WHAT! I'LL BE A GRANDMOTHER!!!

The response? A broken yeah... so am I.

Turns out that my cousin, 22 years old, with no education, a job in a supermarket, and with one abortion on her karmic bill from a previous relationship with a man who has taken off with all the little money she had once he found out she was pregnant, not very long ago. It's the other kind of pregnant. She's *ominous whisper* pregnant. From a 19 year old boy who works in delicatessen at that same store, for minimum wage. A 19 year old boy whom she knows for a wee few months, and whose hormones had the best of him even though she flat out told him that she was not using any contraception. That she wanted to become knocked up so she wouldn't have to work anymore. After her older sister had gotten knocked up after a one-night-stand in pretty much the same situation, 2 years ago.

My mother's joy and enthusiasm over becoming a grandmother got stopped short, to say the least, over my aunt's devastation of becoming just that - again, and again under all the wrong circumstances.

There is pregnant, and there is pregnant. While my mother hopes with all her might for our Booger to hold on this time, to become her grandchild in 8 months, my aunt is hoping with all her might for her own future grandchild to meet the same fate that our first little one did. It sounds cruel, it sounds wrong, and it probably is, too. Incredibly how different becoming a grandmother can be perceived in different situations.

I find it irresponsible and mindless what my cousin has done. I feel sorry for the poor 19 year old boy who got pretty much tricked into being a father and will be financially tied to my cousin for the rest of his life and pay for this child from his meager supermarket paycheck. I feel sorry for my aunt who will probably have to raise this grandchild for her irresponsible daughter. A child that otherwise will have no future to speak of.

But I do wish the best for this growing child, that's just as small and tiny as my own - but instead of smiles and laughs and hugs and love only invoked anger and resentment and sadness in his brief little life yet. There were no tears of joy, just tears of anger. There is no talk of birth clinics, but talk of abortion centers. There was no love involved in this little embryo's making, but coldblooded calculation and selfishness on its mother's part.

This is touching me so much probably because she's as far along as I am, if not in the exact same week.

Such a little thing, a 2 mm amniotic sac with an yet invisible embryo in it, can cause so much love and joy and caring and concern - or the complete opposite. I wish all the best to my cousin's child.

Here's mine: